When I was starting the company, I found a person who decided to join my efforts and help me with the design phase of our client’s presentations. The plan was to make her a co-founder at some point if everything was going well. However, things didn’t work out and we decided it is better for both if everyone moves on separately.

That, however, left me alone in my own company where almost every project involved heavy design work. At the end of the day, we are doing presentations and many times the second step(after building the story), is to create slides that are beautiful and effective.

The problems didn’t end here either. Back then I was not able to pay crazy money for a designer. Why? Well, I didn’t have them. The company was just starting. I was trying to find a co-founder with this expertise but at least in Bulgaria, that turned out to be not as easy as I expected it to be. I even wrote an article on this here already. After searching for a few months(I was able to stay without a designer in the first few months because we didn’t have any projects except for the first one which came on the 10th day after I said the company existed) and not finding the person, I was desperate…

One day I remembered. I had a friend of mine running a company that was training designers. He was now living in Germany but, hey, I can ask him, right? At the end of the day, I tried almost everything else I can think of. So I did. I asked him: “Do you remember someone in your class that made an impression on you?” He responded: “Let me think about it…”

A few days later, he called and gave me the contacts of one of his students. I checked her portfolio and Behance profile — looked OK, so I decided to immediately set up a meeting. That meeting went really well and as I was desperate to get a designer, I invited her to join me. At the end of the day, she was (still is!) really cool person, understood the situation we were at as a company and her portfolio looked decent.

A few days later, we won a project for Deutsche Telekom! I was not going to be able to work closely with her but we agreed that I will see the first draft once we have it. That’s what happened. I got the draft. I got it 16 hours before the meeting with the client where we were supposed to show the progress.

I was shocked when I saw that draft. There were some very fundamental mistakes in the design(I am not a designer but as someone who runs a presentation agency, I know more than enough to know that what I was seeing was not something our client will see). Mistakes which were not present in the portfolio projects I saw before our first meeting…

Surely, I sat down with her as soon as I could and we fixed it. The presentation ended up being so good(we created the story, the design and worked with the Sales Director on his delivery) that it got the attention of the biggest telco in the country and later on, with our help(we built one more deck) they closed a multi-million dollar deal. However, in the upcoming months I was constantly noticing things that worried me quite a lot in her work. I completely understood that she was doing her first professional steps in the design world but those things were fundamentals. Even I, who am not a designer, was not allowing myself to build slides like that when I had to do it on my own. All of that made me ask the question why was this happening and how can I prevent it in the future?

Here’s how I prevented it. When I started looking for our second designer(and each future such we hired), I did what everyone does(guess why!) — I gave the candidate a task. The results — WOW! Just this little change gave me so much insight on what I could expect — you have no idea! I was able to immediately see how that person was approaching a potential project and what was his level in terms of design. At that moment I realized why everyone else on the market(OK, almost everyone) was doing that and had this step as part of their hiring process.

So, my advice for you is, I believe, obvious, right? Always give a task to a candidate. Always, always, always! Yes, you know this person. Yes, you like this person. Yes, it’s may even be a friend of yours. It doesn’t really mater! Give them a task and test them first.

So here’s a question. What is the chance for almost all PowerPoint MVPs in the world to sit down all together on one table and share knowledge? Well, take a look at the photo and see the answer for yourself!

While we were at the MVP Summit in Redmond, the team running the Presentation Podcast(yes, they are also MVPs), came up with a brilliant idea – let’s all sit down, have some drinks and share some PowerPoint wisdom.

That’s what we did and in this almost an hour long podcast you can hear quite some tips & tricks that will help you build better slides faster.

So you look at this photo and think what a great time we had at the MVP Summit in Seattle some few weeks ago.

And you will be right! We indeed had some incredible time!
However, let me tell you a story. The story of how I, Martin Kulov(Microsoft Regional Director and Visual Studio MVP) and Boriana Petrova(Excel MVP) managed to get to Seattle. Here we go!

I got up at 4:45 to get to the airport for a flight from Sofia to Paris at 7 AM.

We met at the airport.

We took the flight and instead of departing at 7 we did at 7.30.

We had a connecting flight at Paris and we had one hour stop between we landed (if on time) and departing to Seattle.

We landed 35 minutes later then scheduled because of Bulgaria Air (already asked for compensation).

I ran as Usain Bolt but missed the flight to Seattle. Martin and Boriana did too.

We went to Air France to ask for another flight on the same day.

They told us all are full.

Only option was through Canada(but you need additional docs no one had) or on the next day.

We booked for the next day.

Interestingly enough when I went there she told me they had 2 more places for tomorrow, but later, she booked tickets for the three of us.

The lady from Air France also booked a hotel for us.

She also told us that Delta (they work in partnership) “never waits”.

We want on to search for our hotel.

We went to the IBIS hotel she told us to.

They told us we do not have a reservation.

They also told us there’s one other IBIS next to them and we should check there.

We went there and they told us our reservation is in the one we were previously.

We went back there and they said we are not there. We are at an IBIS for which we have to get a bus shuttle.

Martin and Boryana were sick and it was raining.

We found the shuttle and we went to the hotel.

We were not there either.

Turned out there is one more IBIS in the area so they told us to go there too.

We went there – noup. We were not there.

The guys at the 4th IBIS called someone. They confirmed – we do not have reservation.

We went back to the airport and tried to find Bulgaria Air at the Paris Airport.

We went to Information. It was closed. I took a photo of it.

We found another information booth and they told us to go to the one that was closed.

I showed them the photo. They were… shocked.

The lady at Information told us to go to Terminal 2E.

We took the shuttle.

Two stops later, a lady from the airport started screaming in French. We didn’t care.

Turned out someone left a bag on the next stop and so it was a bomb thread.

We wondered why wasn’t she talking in English. Cannot figure it out till today.

We waited.

We got back on the shuttle and arrived at 2E.

Asked there where Bulgaria Air are.

They pointed to a place. We went there. Bulgaria Air were not there.

We went back and explained – they were not there.

The lady called someone.

We then explained we had a hotel issue (let’s call it).

She called someone again. Told us to wait.

We waited for 40 minutes.

It’s now 5 hours since we missed our flight.

At some point she told me that our reservation at the first IBIS we were is now confirmed.

We told her we want official voucher and phone number.

She refused to give us because… it was confirmed.

I asked what’s about to happen if we get there again and we don’t have a reservation.

She went silent. Said it’s confirmed by the manager representing Bulgaria Air in Paris.

We went there and voila – we had a reservation.

We left our stuff and went to sleep.

Later on we went for a short sightseeing in Paris.

On the next morning we went at the airport at 8 AM, so we got breakfast at 6.

Our flight was delayed with 4 hours.

Again.

Delta told us – “Our equipment will be late.”

Whatever that means. (asked for compensation on this delay too)

We found a place and worked for 6 – 7 hours.

Boarded the Delta’s plane.

The air conditioning was not working.

We waited (Delta never waits) for 50 minutes at the gate.

Refueling.

We departed and landed in Seattle 10 hours later.

Welcome to the US! Hoooray!

Wait.

500 people and 2 people at border control?

We waited for almost 3 hours to get through border control!

Welcome to the best country in the world!

A friend of mine waited us 3 hours and got us to our hotels.

IT was around 7 PM on Monday.

We had to be there on 11 AM on Sunday.

How cool is that?

I spent 48 hours travelling in one direction.

Then I spent 48 hours in the US.

Then I spent 17 more hours of going back to Sofia.

That sums it up I think.

Why am I sharing it? Well, I really don’t know. I just believe that stories like this are sometimes fun. Hope you enjoyed our struggle! 😀

And oh by the way, if you were following me on Instagram, you may have been able to see that on video and as it was happening.

So there it is. It happened. Again. I am back to the MVP Program as a PowerPoint MVP!

Some of you may know that back then when I was a SQL Server person, I got the SQL Server MVP award and held it for three consecutive years. Of course, it didn’t happen easy as my application was declined first but that just motivated me even more to push even harder and prove Microsoft that I deserved that recognition. I was 22 back then and probably was one of the youngest MVPs Microsoft has ever had…

Then 356labs happened and that… changed a lot of things. Most importantly – changed the fact that I was not contributing to the SQL Server world anymore and so I told Microsoft that they will have to drop me out of the program because I don’t deserve the MVP status anymore. Why? I was just not doing anything SQL. Simple as that.

However, since we launched 356labs, our presentation agency, I started doing a ton of PowerPoint work – wrote 300+ blog posts, organized and participated in tens if not even hundreds of events, pushed the product and built a community of people who understood that PowerPoint can actually be used to create presentations that win multimillion-dollar deals, and win huge investments. So I asked myself – why shouldn’t I try and get the PowerPoint MVP award?

I tried. I submitted my application almost 2 years after we started 356labs and pushed so hard all of the things above. The result? Got rejected. Why? They wanted to see that I will continue to do what I do because it’s just been an year or two now and that’s not enough.

Well, I agree. That’s really the case and honestly speaking, it makes sense. That’s why I continued to push and pushed even harder. I thought myself that I need to do so much so that I will put Microsoft in a position where they don’t have any other option but to give me the award(yeap, one of the MVP leads will tell you that these are the exact words I told him). When I submitted my application again I had more than 55 activities(as Microsoft calls them) and just one of them were the 300+ articles(to give you context of how much effort it takes).

On February 1, while waiting for the confirmation mail, I received a tweet from a friend who is a SQL Server MVP and the tweet was saying that I got the award… I still don’t know why they pushed this information through FB instead of email but let’s not get into this one. 😉

Lesson from the story: Never give up! I learned that looking at the people who inspired me and who achieved things I admired and hopefully this short article will once again remind you that this old advice “Never give up!” is here for a reason. It’s here because it’s true.

Thanks to everyone who made this award possible and especially to everyone in our team at 356labs. That was not going to be possible without your effort!